


You're My World (Torn Apart)

by QueenOfNewOrleans22



Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29077983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfNewOrleans22/pseuds/QueenOfNewOrleans22
Summary: "What do you want?" Izzy's kindness, temporary as it might've been, had disappears just like he had, and been replaced by his sharp irritation. It was so usual for Izzy, calm and collected as he usually was.
Relationships: Axl Rose/Izzy Stradlin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	You're My World (Torn Apart)

Not every story had a happy ending, and the beginning of the end had already started on one hot summer day as Axl Rose sat in his breakfast nook, feeling like a ninny as he drank a cup of orange juice and stared at the little piece of paper, ripped and stained but with the numbers, written in harsh black ink, still etched clearly onto it. Axl stared at them like they were a foreign code, unsure, or, perhaps, uncertain. 

It was 2016. Axl had just gotten off the phone with Duff, and they'd been talking about the upcoming song releases. Slash had said something in the background that was soft and hazy, and Duff had translated that they were looking toward to finally being back together again. 

Steven and Axl were back on good terms, or as good as they would ever get with the lingering tension from so many years ago hanging above them like a heavy blanket, and that was okay, because that was better than nothing. 

It should've been an easy choice. Axl could've tossed the paper in the trash and watched as it sailed down to the bottom of the back, or pressed them into the buttons of his phone and listened to the dial tone. But yet, as the clock ticked on and on, Axl found himself thinking about the last time he and Izzy had been together, had talked, and found himself reluctant. 

Desperation had etched Axl's words, and Izzy, so uncomfortable, had seemed to shrink back in his self-imposed darkness. It had been a mark of the band's soon return, and Izzy, with that sweet little smile, had said goodbye like it'd all meant nothing, and Axl had just watched him leave, guitar in hand. 

Axl grimaced at the memory, and his grip on the phone became tight. He didn't think that, when the call went through, that Izzy would pick up. After all, Izzy was the runner, the deserter. As Slash had said, running was Izzy's defense mechanism, and after so many years, he was still running, just like when Axl had clocked that girl over the head with his Mic during one of their early shows. Izzy was running and running and he would never stop. 

In the depths of his mind, Axl knew that he needed to accept that, but for now, he would settle for dialing the number and pressing his phone against his ear, listening to the tone as it droned on and on, dull and monotonous. Axl didn't think that he would get an answer, but he wasn't a coward. He didn't run away from the mess, after all. Axl ran _toward it,_ and maybe that was his problem. 

The tone continued. Axl watched as the dog ran outside and the sun burst from behind the trees. He remembered how Izzy always had calluses on his fingers and how his dark hair seemed like a curtain to hide himself from the world. He remembered how Izzy didn't laugh, rarely smiled, but how his displeasure always seemed to be a requirement to his personality. 

They'd spent their last days together arguing. Or, rather, Axl had. Izzy didn't like to argue and would just pluck at his guitar, pleasantly ignoring whatever was being yelled at him until it became too much and Izzy would get up and leave. He always left, running like a scared child. Axl would always grab his arm and ask where he was going. Izzy would stare with his strange brown-grey eyes and never say anything in response. 

"Yes?" Izzy's voice was smoke-roughened. He sounded calm, but with that undercurrent of anxiety that he always got when talking. It was Izzy, a man who had ran and disappeared like he'd never existed in the first place. He was hundreds of miles away, but his voice was so close that Axl felt like he could reach out and touch Izzy's hand. 

Axl shut his eyes tightly. "Hey." He said, and his voice sounded soft, weak. His hand was clenched in a fist and pressed against the countertop. 

There was a flicker of silence, tense and horrible. Axl suddenly feared that Izzy would panic and hang up. They hadn't talked on the phone in years and it seemed wrong and strange. Axl took a deep breath, praying to whatever God that existed for this one chance, one last moment. 

"What do you want?" Izzy's kindness, temporary as it might've been, had disappears just like he had, and been replaced by his sharp irritation. It was so usual for Izzy, calm and collected as he usually was. 

It was better than silence, Axl knew, but it still made his jaw clench. "I - a friend of mine got your number." Resisting the urge to add a question on how was a task in itself, because Axl hadn't managed to find a proper, working number since Izzy had left in the first place. 

Izzy made a noise from the back of his throat, and it sounded harsh. "So you just decided to call, ask how life's been treating me?" He said, and the anger that'd been boiling since the nineties was there, but it had yet to spill. Izzy was always that type of person to bite his tongue rather than scream, his temper carefully hiding under wraps of heavy tarp. 

That'd always been a point of argument for them, and Axl had always hated it. "I know you hate me, Izzy. I know you hate me more than you've ever hated anybody in your life, but I need you to listen to me." Axl was grasping for straws at this point, hoping for a stronghold as he fell down the mountain. 

Like a dying man on his last breaths, Izzy sighed. He sounded hopeless. "Okay." 

Axl smiled. "There's a lot of things that I have to talk about with you. I know that we haven't seen each other in years, I know that you're off doing whatever you've always wanted to do. But I've missed you." The words hadn't come out quite as intended, and Axl winced. 

For a man who'd always been uncomfortable with affection, Izzy's silence was more than likely shock. Or he was barely listening. That would be usual, too. "I don't think you do." Izzy said. 

" _I do._ And, okay, you don't believe me. That's okay." Axl told himself not to get mad, otherwise Izzy would run. Whatever was done and whatever was said, Izzy could not run. "But I have your number now, and I've been thinking about this for awhile now." Axl licked his lips, and he suddenly felt like he was about to throw up from pure anxiety. 

"What?" Izzy asked, and unless Axl was imagining things, he sounded scared, too.

Axl almost didn't ask. He nearly just hung up the phone and forget that anything had happened at all. But Izzy sounded scared and Axl couldn't leave him like this, waiting for an answer that would never come. After all those years, Axl still couldn't let Izzy be with his dark thoughts alone. ' _But yet, you still let him walk away.'_ Axl hated hearing the truth, and he hated hearing it whispered like a secret in his head. 

Taking a breath that hurt his lungs with the force, Axl took his chance and ran with it. "I want to meet you. _See_ you. Just one more time, Iz. I don't care if you punch me and call me an asshole or whatever you want. I just need - _you."_ Axl sighed, burying his face against his free hand. 

This time, the silence stretched on for an eternity. It felt like forever, and Axl waited, and he knew, if Izzy hung up, that this would be the end. Not of their love, because Axl didn't think that he would ever stop loving the man who had left his life so long ago. Izzy was Axl's missing piece, the person who completed him. 

Too bad that Axl had only come to his realization after Izzy had left and made his own life got himself. 

" _Please."_ Axl hated to beg, but he was ready and willing. He would do anything at that point, and he loathed it. This wasn't _him._ But Axl didn't care. "Just once." 

And the silence continued. Axl couldn't even hear Izzy's breathing, and he wondered if Izzy had gotten up and walked away. A part of Axl knew that he couldn't blame Izzy for that, but yet, he waited. He bit his thumbnail and stared at the clock. Over five minutes had passed since any form of a response had come. 

"Once. And then it's over." Izzy said. "I'll text you the address." 

There was a small beep, and Axl knew that he'd just been hung up on. But as his phone lit up with the incoming text, he could only smile. 

And now, two and a half weeks after that phone call, Axl was standing amongst miles of orange groves and wondering where Izzy was. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited, resisting the urge to text or call because that's only make things worse. 

It was fairly secluded. The leaves from the orange trees rustled slightly in the wind, and the sweet smell of fruit wafted through the air. Axl bounced on the balls of his feet, looking around and feeling his jaw begin to tense in anxiety and anticipation. He'd gotten his wish, and now, Axl was reaping what he'd sown. 

Eternity seemed to pass, but Axl's watch confirmed his suspicions, and only fifteen minutes had passed since he'd first arrived. There weren't a lot of people around, which Axl supposed was smart. They couldn't be seem, after all. Axl pulled his hat over his eyes and felt his heart pound against his ribcage. 

A slender man emerged from a grove of trees, hands in his pockets and head tilted down so he was staring at the ground, but his eyes, sharp and looking grey in the shining light, were angled toward Axl. The sight shouldve been relieving but there was only a sudden bolt of terror. 

Axl smiled. He couldn't help it, he smiled, and it hurt his face because it was so wide. "Hey." Axl said, and he sounded hoarse, torn by relief and happinss. Axl loathed to admit it, but he'd been afraid that he would be left to stand amongst the orange trees, alone and waiting. 

Coming to a stop, Izzy shifted uncomfortably. His hair was choppily cut, and his eyes looked shadowed. "Hi." He said, and his voice was soft, quiet. Despite the heat, Izzy was wearing a jacket that seemed to cover his body like a tarp. 

"I didn't know if you'd come." Axl felt ashamed to admit it, he really did, but he didn't know how else he could supposed to feel. 

The last time they'd seen each other was five years prior, when Izzy had, for some godforsaken reason, agreed to play a few songs. Izzy had been wearing a dusty suit and he'd been shy and so quiet that it'd been hard to hear him. Axl had wanted to touch him, but knew that he wouldn't be allowed to. 

"Well, I'm here." Izzy shifted again. "What do you want, Axl?" He asked. 

In truth, Axl didn't know. He could've asked for the world, and he wouldn't have gotten it, because in the sudden clarity of a therapist and too many truths that were whispered by a band mate in the throes of anger, he knew that Izzy was the world that Axl lived in. That was the sad, cold truth. Izzy was Axl's world, even though they were miles apart. 

"I just want to look at you." Axl said. He wanted to look at Izzy's eyes that looked grey in the sunlight, and at his clumsily cut hair, and at his nose and mouth and skin, and he itched to touch but knew that, like a prized jewel, he would get to look but never touch. 

Izzy's pale skin flushed red, and he looked away. His face was the same, just with wrinkles pulling at his skin. It suited him, Axl thought. It gave Izzy character, and seemed to go well with his perpetual wiseman act. 

"Why?" Izzy whispered. 

Back in 1993, Izzy had uttered that exact same question in that same pitched whisper. Now, here they were, and Axl stepped forward, leaves crunching underneath his boots. He was pushing past the thick veil, and Axl was determined to get through it. 

Izzy didn't step back when Axl reached out and touched the side of his face. He could feel that old, faint scar from when Izzy had gotten a little too careless with his pocket knife and, behind the wrinkles and the scar and the weary gaze, that was his Izzy, and Axl had missed him. 

"I'm sorry." Axl said, and it hurt, so much. 

"I know." Izzy replied. 


End file.
